In many instances it is desirable to make standardized documents available to users. Such standardized documents can include forms with fields to be completed by a user, or publications of general information. For example, in a revenue service bureau it is desirable to provide users with forms for reporting income and taxes due on the income, as well as publications explaining how the forms are to be completed, and providing other information useful to individuals or companies. Another example is in an office environment, such as a real estate office, where forms such as sales and lease agreements, closing documents, and other related information is to be made available to agents to enable them to perform their functions in completing sales or leases of real property. Yet another example is in the office of a legal services provider (such as a law firm or a public service bureau) where it is desirable to provide users with forms commonly filed with a court of law, instructions for completing the forms, and general information. As used herein, the term “document” and “documents” will mean any and all such printed matter which it is desirable to make available to a population of users.
Generally, past practice has been to print a number of the documents and place the documents in stacks or in bins so that a user can pick the document he or she desires from the stack or bin. When a stack or bin for any particular document is depleted or becomes empty, then a service provider is required to either print additional copies of the depleted documents and place them in the stack or bin, or, more commonly, to retrieve several of the documents from a document inventory and place them in the stack or bin. This, of course, requires human intervention. Personnel may not always be available to perform these duties, or may be taken away from other duties in order to replenish the depleted stack or bin.
When documents are provided from a document inventory, then an additional problem with the traditional system of providing documents to users arises. The document inventory is generated based on an assumption of the estimated number of each document that will be required by users. When the estimate of the number of documents is too low, then additional documents must be printed, or the documents will not be available to the users. When the estimate of the number of documents is too high, then excessive printing costs are incurred.
Further, documents, particularly in the way of forms and publications, are frequently updated. For example, revenue reporting related forms are updated annually to reflect the then-current reporting year. If too many forms were printed for the previous reporting period, then the surplus forms must be destroyed when the forms for the current reporting period are printed. This, of course, results in waste, and also introduces the possibility that the wrong form may be provided to users.
What is needed then is a way to provide documents to users that alleviates the problems associated with prior art methods of providing documents to users.